Chapter 1: The Protagonist states he suffers from akin hypochondria and hates meeting people, and tries to sneak past the Landlady because he owes her several months rent. He talks about committing a crime he believes he couldn’t do (its not mentioned yet what it is). The protagonist is described as tall and handsome wearing ratty clothes living in a filthy city filled with drunkards, prostitutes, and tradesmen. He arrives at Alyona Ivanovna’s apartment (the pawnbroker). Along the way to the pawnbroker’s house he observed as many details as possible including its inhabitants (for his plan). Then we meet the pawnbroker who is described as an old lady, and we find out the protagonists name is Raskolnikov and he was a student and met the pawnbroker before. He notices the apartment is old but it’s clean because of the pawnbroker’s sister (Lizaveta). The pawnbroker buys off a watch for a small amount. Raskolnikov watches the pawnbroker keenly observing where she puts all of her stuff so to be ready for when (if) he commits his crime. After leaving the apartment he feels he can’t carry through with his plan so he renounces it and decides to go to a tavern (for the first time in his life).

                Chapter 2: Raskolnikov runs into a drunken man who looks like a government official. He speaks as if he had a thorough education and explains his whole life story to Raskolnikov while the other people in the tavern crack jokes at him. The drunken man is married to a noble woman (Katrina Ivanova), who had three children with her first marriage which went bad leading to her disinheritance. The drunken man (Marmeladov) has only one child of his own (Sonya) who has to sell herself in prostitution to pay the bills for them (and so the drunken man can drink the money away). After telling the story, Marmeladov leads Raskolnikov to his home. When they arrive Raskolnikov notices his wife is about 30 years of age and the wife grabs him by the hair and starts yelling (Marmeladov hasn’t returned for 5 days). The landlady comes in and tells the family to move out, and Raskolnikov decides to leave but he puts some money on the sill for them (he shortly regrets this).

                Chapter 3: The next morning Nastasya (the caring neighbor) wakes Raskolnikov up and hands him some soup, tea, and a letter from his mother (Pulcheria Alexandrovna).  Nastasya also tells Raskolnikov that the landlady wants to evict him from the apartment because he is not paying his rent. In the letter, Raskolnikov is informed of the current status of his sister Dunya and told she is engaged to marry Pyotr Petrovich Luzhin who wants to marry Dunya because she is poor and will treat him better. They both hope that Dunya’s fiancé will help Raskolnikov financially (provide him a job). Also the letter states that Raskolnikov’s mother and sister and his sisters fiancé will be arriving soon to St. Petersburg.  Raskolnikov doesn’t like the idea of the marriage because he believes she is doing it for him, and that the man is snobbish, so he goes out for a walk.

                Chapter 4: During his walk he concludes he will not allow Dunya to make such a sacrifice for him and will not give his consent for the marriage. Then he notices a young drunk woman whose clothes are put on poorly walking as an old man closely follows her. Then he confronts the man and gets into a squabble with him, a policeman comes and Raskolnikov explains the situation and gives the officer some money to send the girl home in a cab. However, shortly after giving him the money Raskolnikov regrets doing this as the officer is likely to do nothing and just keep the money. Then Raskolnikov contemplates visiting his friend Razumikhin. He describes Razumikhin as a school friend who he hasn’t seen in months and is kind and outgoing.

                Chapter 5: Raskolnikov decides not to go to his friends house today, but only after he commits the act. He then goes to get some drinks and gets drunk and falls asleep in the grass and has a dream about an event in his past when he was a child and witnessed a horse get beat by drunkards who reveled in its death. Raskolnikov wakes up and decides on a whim to go visit the Haymarket, and along the way he hears Lizaveta in a conversation with some people saying she will stop by at 7 o clock (meaning she won’t be w/ the pawnbroker at 7). He then goes home realizing that fate was helping him with this plan.

                Chapter 6: Now Raskolnikov is at home and is recounting how he came up with the idea to kill the pawnbroker. He states that the first time he met her he hated her, and right after meeting her for the first time he hears conversations from young people talking about the morality of killing her and distributing her wealth. Raskolnikov finds this information like a sign because he heard this right after meeting her. He feels it is his destiny now to kill the pawnbroker. When Raskolnikov wakes up he realizes its 6 o clock and that he had to be ready by 7 so he quickly makes a fake pledge, a noose to hang the axe, and plans to take an axe from the neighbor. He thinks of taking Nastasya’s axe because she is rarely home and could easily sneak in and take it but when he goes to Nastasya’s apartment she is still there but he sees the caretakers shed is open and takes an axe from him (he thinks the devil helped him do this). At 7:30 he reaches the pawnbrokers apartment almost completely unnoticed and after much convincing gets the pawnbroker to open the door.

                Chapter 7: The pawnbroker lets Raskolnikov in and asks what he wants. Raskolnikov gives her a package (which has been knotted up real tight to distract her) and he pulls out an axe and hits her several times before she is dead on the floor with blood all over her. He takes the keys and goes into the backroom where the pawnbroker puts all of her money, but he can’t find any so he returns and takes her purse and a few trinkets from the backroom. But then Lizaveta enters the apartment at that time and Raskolnikov takes the axe and kills her in one strike and notices the door open. Raskolnikov closes the door and uses a hook to keep it there, and then two strange men knock furiously at the door. One of those men realizes that there has to be something suspicious going on because someone is in the room (the hook gives that away) and they are not answering. So one of them decides to go down while the other stands guard, but the one standing guard gets tired of waiting so he goes down too, to look for the porter. Raskolnikov then went down the flats and hid in an open vacant room and when the coast was clear quickly snuck out of the apartment complex and took a long route home and put the axe back where he got it from.